Morals, beliefs and creativity inspiration varies largely whether it be within state lines or across the globe. The uniqueness of every person is useful to both oneself as well as how they contribute to their daily workforce. Diverse personality in the workforce is just about as necessary as your smartphone (so, pretty necessary.)
“Diversity fosters creativity. We need to generate the best ideas from our people in all levels of the company and incorporate them into our business practices,” said Frederic Roze, chief executive officer for L’Oreal USA.
When considering new hires, the EEOC and OFCCP help to enforce a broad workforce. In order to do so, however, you have to widen the talent pool scope. There are many approaches to creating a diverse team, including:
Reach Out to Larger Talent Pools
Look at the team you have now and categorize what kind of talents they have, characteristics and work ethics. Next, make a list of all the areas of improvement you’d like to see your team achieve within the week/month/year. Can these goals be reached by your current team? Perhaps it’s time to search for additional talent to leverage your long-term and short-term business goals.
Achieving a global office is in the now. Cutting edge softwares such as video applicant screening and interviewing have become the door to widening company diversity. Don’t be afraid to look outside of your zipcode. Expanding horizons within the office can create the ultimate team. Start by screening and interviewing candidates with video interviewing tools.
Recruiters and hiring managers are able to view an average of 10 video interview screens within the span of time it would take to complete one average-length phone screen. Not only does this leave more time for you to review higher potential candidates, but allows more breadth in your sourcing initiatives, which is often where diversity starts. Using open links to allow even more applications to your openings can help with this.
The Hardships
While personality diversity in the workplace is greatly encouraged, it’s also not the easiest for employees to adjust to. Ethnocentrism can be the central cause to these difficulties creating: lack of trust in diverse offices, interpersonal conflict, low communication, discomfort among co-workers and less cohesion. Hiring managers can diminish these acts early on by creating a warm environment to welcome every employee.
When recruiting and sourcing outside of the standard company zip code, phone screens come up short; often making it difficult to overcome language barriers, tough to decipher accents and body language. Not being able to SEE the candidate can make these interviews a disadvantage to the very diverse pool of people you’re attempting to hire.
Increase in Creativity
Every walk of life creates a new set of biases, ideas, morals, stories and methods between each individual. This element is gold when it comes to creating a new edge to your office; more importantly when working in a creative team when generating innovative ideas frequently plays largely into the job description.
Thought diversity is an aspect of differential thought to be mindful of when considering new hires. In a hypothetical sense, when panning through video interview responses, view candidates who may have answered a particular answer wrong or differently through a lens of chance. While they might have not answered in a way you expected or initially wanted, their answer is unconventional than the rest. This thought diversity is another opportunity for diverse project contribution.
New Tools, Broader Pools
If you’re scrounging in the search for a professional in your field but feel as though there simply aren’t enough in the area, reconsider your search options. 92% of professionals responded through a survey saying they would consider relocating if they were offered a relocation package.
48% of respondents in a survey conducted by Forbes strongly agree personality diversity and inclusive workplaces are crucial to encouraging new ways of thinking and gift the ability to drive in ideas and innovation. While initially introducing a diverse office can create discomfort or unorderly habits, the overall product will please your productivity and objectives once properly applied.
Looking outside your normal talent pool, zip code, sourcing standard and interviewing methods can all be incredibly easy ways to build up diversity within your organization.
This post originally appeared on the GreenJobInterview blog.
Bio: Greg Rokos, CEO
A 20-year veteran of the recruiting industry, Greg Rokos provides strategic direction for GreenJobInterview® and is responsible for marketing its video interviewing software through client meetings, conferences, speaking engagements, key channel partnerships and other activities. Alongside fellow co-founder, Theo Rokos, Greg is one of the pioneers of cloud-based video interviewing.
Greg has been interviewed by NBC, CBS, Fast Company, HR Executive, HR Magazine and many other media outlets. He also has been a featured presenter at various national industry conferences including ERE Expo, Taleo World, Kenexa World Conference and conferences held by the Human Capital Institute (HCI). Greg has participated as a speaker at several national talent acquisition meetings including those held by Fortune 500 companies such as Walmart and PepsiCo. Greg holds a bachelor’s degree with honors from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
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